1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of a vehicle body in an automobile vehicle, and in particular, to a structure around a lower portion of the dashboard.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The structure of a vehicle body of an automobile with longitudinally extending side-frames in front of the vehicle compartment which are coupled at their rear ends to a front surface of a dashboard, such as shown in FIG. 4, is conventionally widely known (see, for example, pages 20 to 23 etc., of "Vehicle body of Automobile Vehicle in Automobile Engineering Book, Vol. 13" issued from Sankaidou).
In the above-described vehicle, when a large collision load is applied from the front to the vehicle body upon collision or the like of the vehicle, a lower portion of the dashboard corresponding to the foot contact point of an occupant at a toe side may be deformed to protrude rearwards due to the deformation or rearward displacement of the side-frames, thereby pushing back the foot contact point. In such case, the foot-ankle joint of the occupant is subjected to a flexure load so that the angle .theta. of the joint (which will be simply referred to as a foot-ankle joint angle hereinafter) formed by the foot and the ankle is decreased.
A thick pad material may be mounted at the lower portion of the dashboard in order to inhibit the decrease of the foot-ankle joint angle. In this case, there is, however, a disadvantage in that the space around the feet of the occupant is reduced due to the use of the thick pad material. Also, the rigidity and strength of the dashboard and a portion around the dashboard may be specially increased using a reinforcing material in order to inhibit the decrease of the foot-ankle joint angle. However, the use of the reinforcing material causes disadvantages such as an increase in weight of the vehicle, a substantial increase in cost, a s substantial reduction in space around the feet of the occupant and the like.